Class 

Copyright N° 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



MONT BLANC 

THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE 




UNDERWOOD AND UNDERWOOD 

NEW YORK AND LONDON 



MONT BLANC 



A PART OF UNDERWOOD AND UNDERWOOD' 8 
STEREOSCOPIC TOUR THROUGH 
SWITZERLAND 



PERSONALLY CONDUCTED BY 

M. S. EMEKY 

AUTHOR OF "RUSSIA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE, ' 
AND " HOW TO ENJOY PICTURES " 



UNDEBWOOD AND TTKDEKWOOD 

NEW YORK OTTAWA, KAS. 

LONDON TORONTO, CAN 



THTUBRARY OF / 
CONGRESS, 

Two Cores Received 

SEP, 3 190? 

COPVT»IORT ENTRY 

copy * J 

Copyright, 1902 
By UNDERWOOD & UNDERWOOD 
New York and London 
(Entered at Stationers' Hall) 



Stereographs copyrighted in' the United States 
and foreign countries 



Map System 
[Patented in the United States, August 21, 1900 

Patented in Great Britain, March 22, 1900 
Patented in France, March 26, 1900. S. G. D. G. 
Switzerland, + Patent Nr. 21,211 
; Patents applied for in other countries 



All rights reserved 



GETTING BEADY FOR THE JOURNEY 



If this were to be an ordinary Swiss journey, we should 
need to consider questions of tickets, trains, boats, hotels, 
clothing. As it is, we need not concern ourselves about 
time-tables nor excursion rates, about the choice of inns 
nor of shoes for Alpine climbing. All we have to do is 
to consider the special vehicles we are to use, — the stere- 
oscope and stereograph, — so that we may know how to 
use them in the most profitable and enjoyable way. 

It is not enough to take a stereograph in the hand and 
look at it as we would look at an ordinary picture of the 
same subject. If we do only this, we get only what an 
ordinary picture mignt give us. A stereograph is not just 
an ordinary photograph duplicated and placed beside its 
"double" on a card. It differs fundamentally from a 
duplicated photograph. Take Stereograph 49 (" Looking 
South from the Eggishorn over Ehone Valley ") and look 
at it without the stereoscope. Even so, it is beautiful and 
impressive. You judge there is probably some distance 
between the nearer rocks and snow ridges and those hazy 
mountains in the background. Now use your stereo- 
scope. . . . Have you not made some surprising discov- 
eries about the space relations of what lies before you? 
You do not have to estimate the probabilities of open 
spaces between things. You actually see the open spaces 
as clearly as the things; and you see space in places where 
the mere " picture " gave no hint of its existence. 

The difference between an ordinary photograph and a 
stereograph is this: An ordinary photograph of a given 

27 



28 



GETTING EEADY FOR THE JOURNEY 



scene ia taken by the use of one lens, giving us just what 
we might see with one eye from that particular stand- 
point. A stereograph is taken by the use of two lenses 
side by side (between two and three inches apart), giving 
us just what we might see with our full equipment of two 
eyes; and this is quite another matter. The right eye, by 
virtue of its location in the head, has a chance to see 
farther towards or around the right side of any solid ob- 
ject before us; the left eye is able to see to a greater 
extent towards or around the left side of the same object. 
Using both eyes at once, as we do in everyday experience, 
we practically see part-way around solid objects. 

Try it. Take this very book and hold it (closed) at 
aim's length, directly before you, the back towards you. 
Shut the right eye and look with the left only; you see 
not only the back but also part of the cover on the left 
side. Close the left eye and look with the right, keeping 
the book in the same position; you now see the back and 
a part of the cover on the right side. Look with both 
eyes; you get an impression of both covers at once as well 
as the title-back. You practically see around it; conse- 
quently it looks solid, as if it had, in truth, thickness 
as well as length and breadth. 

The right-hand print on any stereograph card presents 
what one would see with his right eye if standing just 
where the camera stood. The left-hand print on the 
same card shows what one would see at the same moment 
with his left eye. The difference between the two views 
of any distant object is so slight that very often it can- 
not be detected in the stereograph without carefully exact 
measurements and comparisons, but the difference always 
exists. Examine, for instance, Stereograph 69 ("Inn 
where Napoleon Stopped, Bourg St. Pierre. Eoad to the 
Great St. Bernard Pass")- The building in the fore- 
ground shows an evident difference between the two 



GETTING EEADY FOE THE JOUBNEY 



29 



prints. Look carefully at the right-hand end of the little 
one-story building, and you will find it appreciably wider 
in the right-hand print, narrower in the left-hand print. 
The right lens or eye of the camera saw farther around 
to the right than the left lens could see. 

Stereograph 67 shows a variation even more striking. 
See what different reports the two eyes give as to the 
relation of the clock-face and the distaff. 

In ordinary, healthy vision, we are not conscious of re- 
ceiving two different reports from our two eyes. The 
mechanism of our visual organs is such that when looking 
at solid objects in nature, our two impressions get fused 
into one. When the two prints of a stereograph are in 
question, we need the optician's help to fuse those two 
impressions into one. The needed service is rendered by 
means of the carefully set lenses of the stereoscope. 
Viewed through the stereoscope lenses, at a distance suit- 
able to one's own eyes (the distance varies with different 
people), the two prints are seen as a unit and solid objects 
" stand out " in space exactly as if the reality were pres- 
ent. For all practical purposes of seeing, the reality is 
present. For a curiously striking bit of testimony to the 
faithfulness of a good Swiss stereograph, just read, in 
the notes on Stereograph 85, what an English mountain- 
climber wrote home in regard to the ascent of Mont Blanc 
from Pierre Pointue to the Grands Mulets. 

And we see objects, people, buildings, all details, in 
their full size. Suppose while standing within six inches 
of your window you look out and see a man on the street 
corner, a dozen rods away. He is a man of average height. 
But if you were to scratch his image on the window pane, 
just as it lies there, showing how much space that image 
really occupies on the glass, your drawing would be only 
a fraction of an inch high. A very small image near the 
eye thus corresponds perfectly to a much larger object 



30 GETTING READY FOR THE JOURNEY 



that is farther away. It is in accordance with this 
general principle that stereographie figures of men and 
women, houses, trees, all sorts of things, when seen 
through the stereoscope, are experimentally identical with 
f nil-size objects considerably farther away; that is, if 
the focal length of the camera, the distance from the 
lenses to the plate, and the focal length of the stere- 
oscope, the distance from the lenses to the stereograph, 
correspond. As a matter of fact, the eyes receive 
from the details of the stereograph, a few inches dis- 
tant, images of exactly the same size as the images that 
would be received from the actual things at the actually 
greater distance, if the observer stood just where the 
camera stood. When one studies a stereograph, he is 
therefore practically looking through the card and seeing 
the real things, full-size, ~beyond it. That is what the ex- 
perience really amounts to! 

One other thing about stereographs should be noted 
beforehand. When seen, as they should be, through a 
stereoscope, they fill the whole field of vision. The hood 
of the stereoscope shuts out all irrelevant sights, leaving 
us in the presence of whatever the stereoscope has to 
give us. This separation from immediately surrounding 
things makes it easily possible to put those out of mind 
and to think only of what is before the eyes. 

It is distinctly worth while to give each stereograph 
this undivided attention, realizing that, for the time, as 
far as our inner experience goes, we are actually in the 
presence of whatever the stereograph has to reveal. 

But, unless we have a clear notion of the locality in 
question, our feeling of actual presence might be partly 
fanciful " make-believe." It should not be mere make- 
believe. It should be, and can be, a deliberate, purposeful 
exercise of the imagination (or the memory), with a basis 
of accurate knowledge about the lay-of-tho-land. The 



GETTING READY EOR THE JOURNEY 



31 



maps prepared to accompany these Swiss stereographs 
will be found invaluable helps to clear, correct thinking 
about the location of each successive point of view and its 
relation to those which precede and follow. In this Swiss 
tour we are to take one hundred different standpoints, in 
various parts of Switzerland. Each one of these one hun- 
dred standpoints is plainly located on one (sometim.es on 
several) of the maps, being in each case at the (numbered) 
apex of a V printed in red. The spread of the arms of 
the V indicates the range of the view obtained from the 
standpoint at the apex. Reference to the proper map 
shows us exactly where we are to locate ourselves men- 
tally; it shows us in what direction we are to look; it 
shows what must be behind us, what must lie off at our 
right and at our left. Map 1 gives the whole route, in- 
dicating the advance by a continuous red line. Maps 2- 
11 give more detailed particulars. 

Do not fail to use the maps. You will find that the in- 
creased definiteness in your understanding of the scenes 
and the increased vividness of your sense of location will 
repay you times over for the slight trouble of turning to 
look for the information they have to give. 

The study of a stereograph in the manner suggested 
here does actually lead one through the mental experi- 
ence of being in the place itself. This experience is not 
fanciful, but real. It has to do, not with mere dull, 
material facts, but with facts of consciousness, — facts of 
mental attitude and action. 

Think a minute what is the nature of the experience 
which you value most when you visit some place pre- 
viously unfamiliar. The mere bodily experience of being 
in personal contact with a certain street pavement or a 
certain gravel path is not what you value most. The 
smells in the air, the noises of traffic — these you seldom 
care to recall in any detail. What is it that you do regard 



32 



GETTING BEADY FOR THE JOURNEY 



as most precious ? What do you strive, over and over, to 
reproduce in memory? Surely the experiences that came 
through your intelligent use of the sense of sight; the 
feelings you had when you saw with your eyes how 

' ' The splendor falls on castle walls 
And snowy summits, old in story." 

And it is precisely this experience, obtainable through 
the sense of sight, which stereographs give when they are 
utilized intelligently. As we have just reminded our- 
selves, we receive absolutely the same visual impressions 
of the forms of things that we might receive from the 
material things direct. If to these visual impressions we 
add a definite, clean-cut knowledge as to what things or 
places lie at the right and left of our field of vision, if we 
have some clear notion what is behind us and what lies 
ahead of us beyond the immediate limits of a particular 
view (and this is what the figured maps are for), if we 
thoroughly understand what we are seeing, we do have, 
to all intents and purposes, the mental experience of being 
on the spot. We have the feeling of being on the 
spot. And it is this mental and spiritual experi- 
ence which counts. The cows f eeding on a Swiss " alp " 
or mountain pasture experience all the physical facts of 
seeing Swiss scenery, but they never attain to the truer 
mental and spiritual reality of seeing Switzerland with 
the mind. The material facts are only the raw stuff out 
of which genuine realities may be wrought in the work- 
shop of the receptive, active mind. . 

Of course, stereographs have their limitations. They 
do not at present give us color. But they do give us, in 
the most exquisite fashion, what the painter calls " val- 
ues" — degrees of lightness and darkness corresponding 
to the luminosity of the actual colors; and, after a little 



GETTING READY FOR THE JOURNEY 



33 



practice in looking for those beautiful gradations of value, 
the pleasure to be gotten out of that kind of effects is so 
great that one can accept the absence of actual hues. 
Look at Stereographs 13, 14, 15, 16. It is true, we should 
be richer if we could see actual blues and greens, russets 
and browns and olives and gold; but we are passing rich 
even as it is, if we just use our eyes. 

Stereographs do not give us the actual, physical sensa- 
tions of varying atmosphere, temperature, and so on. 
That is true, and loss is implied in the fact. But it may 
not be frivolous to recall to mind that there are some ad- 
vantages as well as disadvantages in omitting the physical 
experience of winds and waves and arctic cold. If one 
" averages " the reminiscences of returned travellers, it 
would appear that experiences of discomfort are those 
which ordinarily make the deepest impression. We who 
travel by stereograph have the privilege of counting up 
some gains as well as losses on this account. 

And stereographs do not give us motion. They do 
give, to a wonderful degree, the effect of motion in some 
of its most beautiful phases. Take Stereograph 43 
("Beauty and Splendor of the Engadine; looking South- 
west from the Hahnensee to the Maloja"), an( i se e if 
the airy sweep of those light clouds across the sunshiny 
sky is not absolutely real, to a person with a bit of 
imagination. Here, again, a certain loss inherent in the 
fixity of a stereo-graphic print is partially balanced by a 
gain inherent in the very same fact. How many times 
have we ourselves said, in the face of some experience 
direct with nature, " Oh, if this could only last, just as it 
is!" But it doesn't. The stereographs give us an op- 
portunity to repeat any given experience again and again. 
We can go back and look up at the Matterhorn as many 
times as we like and find the selfsame inspiration in its 
eloquent gesture. 



34 



GETTING BEADY FOR THE JOURNEY 



These, then, are our travelling directions: 

Consult the maps frequently in order to get a clear idea 
of your location. 

As a rule, it will be well to read the notes about each 
stereograph before looking at it, returning to the notes 
as often as may Le desired when studying details of any 
particular scene. 

Be sure to have a strong, steady light on the stereo- 
graph while studying it. If practicable, let the light fall 
over your shoulder and on the face of the print. 

Take time. G-o slowly. Go again and again. It would 
be impossible to take in at a glance all the interesting 
and valuable contents of any stereograph in this Swiss 
tour. If dismissed with a glance, it has not had a chance 
to give what it has to give. 

The study of the stereographs, one after another, on 
this plan, can give the larger part and the better part of 
whatever actual travel gives. There are people who 
make long journeys to famous places merely for the sake 
of being able to say they have been there. Stereographs 
will not satisfy that cheap ambition. There are people 
who go about writing their names on observation towers 
and chipping little bits of stone off famous monuments to 
carry home in their pockets. Stereographs cannot be of 
much use to travellers of that poor sort, either. But, with 
most of us, the chief satisfaction and joy of travel con- 
sist in seeing the grandeur and beauty of "this goodly 
frame, the earth in seeing how the world looks in spots 
made famous by great events or by men who lived there; 
in seeing how other men live now, and what sights of 
earth and sky are woven into their daily life-experience. 
If this is what we want, the sensible, thoughtful use of 
stereographs cannot be overestimated as a practical means 
of enlarging our knowledge and multiplying our delight. 



MONT BLANC 



MONT BLANC 

From different points in and about Geneva one can see, 
away off to the east, Mont Blanc towering huge and white 
against the sky. You know Mont Blane really stands in 
French territory, not within the geographical limits of 
Switzerland (General Map No. 1 shows just how the 
boundary line runs between the two countries); but no 
visit to Switzerland could seem geographically complete 
if we did not get some near views of this most famous 
of all the Alpine peaks. Let us go over, then, from Geneva 
to the little village of Chamonix which lies just under the 
mountain. You see on the General Map a section about 
Mont Blanc marked out for reproduction by itself as Map 
No. 11, " The Chain of Mont Blanc/' Notice that tie sec- 
tion is not made like the others, with its sides facing directly 
the four points of the compass; it is taken out obliquely, so 
that the top of our special Map No. 11 will be towards the 
northwest, the right-hand side toward the northeast. Now 
turn to Map No. 11 itself and we have the same region 
very satisfactorily enlarged. Chamonix is near the mid- 
dle of the map from left to right, and the point where we 
are to take our first stand is marked there 78. Trace the 
red lines which run toward the southwest and you see 
they take in the summit of Mont Blanc with a large area 

228 



THE BALMAT MONUMENT IN CHAMONIX 229 



of glaciers and rocks between. We must evidently expect 
to find a good deal of the section we are to see taken up by 
broad expanses of snow and ice. 

78. JBalmat, First to Ascend Mont Blanc pointing out 
His Moute to De Saussure ; Chamonioo 

We are standing in the village square of Chamonix near 
the church, and looking a little south of west. The in- 
scription on this monument is quite plain, " Erected in 
1887 by the cooperation of the French, Swiss, Italian and 
English Alpine Clubs, the Appalachian Club of Boston, 
the Tourists' Society of Austria and the Academy of 
Sciences, Paris." The group of figures is perhaps a little 
too commonplace in its realism to be really great as a work 
of art, but it is at least appropriate as a memorial to the 
two men whose courage and persistence did so much to 
make this giant mountain accessible to other people ever 
since their day. 

But we must get in mind the more general features of 
the mountain mass beyond. The peak furthest to the 
right is the Aiguille du Gouter, the rounded dome directly 
before us is the Dome du Gouter, while we just make out 
the summit of Mont Blanc away up yonder on our extreme 
left. The mass of ice that stretches far down the moun- 
tain-side is the Bossons Glacier. The two great rocks that 
rear themselves above the snow near the beginning of that 
glacier, and in line with the hollow between the Dome du 
Gouter and Mont Blanc, are the Grands Mulets, famous 



230 SWITZERLAND THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE 

in Mont Blanc mountain-climbing. We are to stand on 
those rocks later. The usual route to the summit leads 
right by them. The mountain shoulder beyond the 
glacier, with snow in irregular ridges near its top, is 
bounded on the farther side by the Taconnaz Glacier, 
which we shall see after a while. 

It was only a little over a hundred years ago that the 
first ascent was made, and a chamois hunter of Chamonix, 
Jacques Balmat, was the first to reach the summit. He 
was a man of twenty-five, full of vigor and determination. 
The Genevese naturalist, De Saussure, had offered a 
reward to anyone who could discover a practicable route to 
the top of the mountain. Balmat and another man went 
up as far as those two black rocks, the Grands Mulets, 
which we have already pointed out beyond the long, steep 
slope of the Bossons Glacier; and from that point he 
made the ascent alone. He told the elder Dumas about 
his experience a good many years afterward when he was 
an old man. He had suffered frightfully from the cold 
and was nearly overcome by the exhaustion of climbing. 
He had been painfully toiling up and up for hours and was 
walking along with his head bowed down when, all at once, 
looking up, he realized that he had reached the summit. 
He looked all about him, trembling with excitement and 
fearing that his first impression had deceived him and that 
he should find some other dome or peak or ridge nearby 
which stood up higher than the point he had attained; 
but it was actually true, — the summit was reached and he 
had no more climbing. It was a spot on the earth's sur- 



balmat's fiest ascent 



231 



face where no living creature bad ever been before; not 
even the chamois nor the eagle had been so high. He 
was absolutely alone, no other human creature within 
sight or sound. It seemed to him that the whole world at 
his feet belonged to him. As he said: " I was the king of 
Mont Blanc; I was the statue of that immense pedestal." 

Another impressive view of the mountain can be had 
if we go up on the Br event, west of the village, sharply to 
our right as we stand here, and look across this valley of 
Chamonix and the river Arve. It is a hard climb up the 
steep slopes of the Brevent. One can walk up in about 
three hours or go up on the back of a mule. There are 
little restaurants and inns high up on the slopes to refresh 
travellers after their stout exertion. By the way, many 
mountain-climbers say that when one is toiling up a hard 
slope of rocks or ice it is sometimes a good plan to carry a 
small stone in the mouth. There is no occult charm in 
the stone itself, but under those circumstances one holds 
his mouth shut and so keeps his throat from becoming 
dried by the rarefied air, consequently he suffers much less 
from thirst than he would if he were tempted to open the 
lips every now and then. 

Look at the map once more, Map No. 11, to make sure 
that the location of the Brevent is clear in your mind. 
Note the mountain ridge near the upper margin of the 
map, bounding the valley of Chamonix on the north- 
west. Our next standpoint is given by the apex of the two 
red lines on that ridge near the number 79, somewhat to 
the left of Chamonix. 



232 SWITZEBLAND THKOUGH THE STEREOSCOPE 

The guide lines indicate, you see, that our view to the 
right will be very short indeed, — cut off suddenly by some- 
thing near us, while we shall be able to look toward the 
left, a distance of nearly seven miles in a straight line, to 
the summit of the Mont Blanc range. 

79. Frightful Alpine Precipices,— looking from 
Aiguille Mouge (fir event) to Mont Blanc 

As we stand now we are fully a mile above the little 
village of Ohamonix and the bed of the Arve. We are 
over 8,200 feet above the sea-level. That is the summit of 
Mont Blanc du Tacul which we see in the distance to the 
left. Mont Blanc itself is more to the right, though much 
of the detail of the slopes on either side, and between us 
and the dome, is covered by those drifting clouds. Every- 
body quotes here Byron's familiar lines about the moun- 
tain: 

" Mont Blanc is the monarch of mountains, 
They crowned him long ago, 
On a throne of rocks in a robe of clouds, 
With a diadem of snow." 

The great mass of ice sliding down the mountain- 
side is the Bossons Glacier again. We get here a better 
idea of the tremendous fall of the ice toward the valley 
below. Just to the right of this glacier we see the ridges 
of snow on the mountain shoulder pointed out from 
Ohamonix (Stereograph 78), and a little farther up we 
catch a glimpse of one of the Grands Mulcts rocks. 



MONT BLANC FEOM THE BKEVENT 



233 



Please admire the cool head and steady nerves of the 
guide rip there on that high cliff. He is as little likely 
to be dizzy as an eagle. It is a truly wonderful command 
of nerve and muscle that the guides attain, spending their 
lives as they do in accurate adjustments of muscle and 
delicate balancing of weight. They learn how to handle 
their own bodies with as marvellous precision and accuracy 
as that with which a chemist handles the materials in his 
laboratory. 

We must do more climbing ourselves and get other 
views of the " monarch " from a point just a little further 
down. A bit more to the south we can see certain of the 
Mont Blanc glaciers much more clearly, that is, we can if 
the clouds keep out of our way. Note carefully the two 
red lines marked 80 which branch toward the south, di- 
rectly toward Mont Blanc, from near our present position 
on the Brevent. 

80. Mont Blanc, Monarch of European Mountains, 
from the Brevent 

The summit is that smoothly rounding white dome just 
opposite where we stand. This whole range that we see 
now is called by the one general name of Mont Blanc, but 
several of the peaks which make up the mountain mass 
have names of their own. It will be specially interesting 
to identify some of the details now, because, when we 
leave the Brevent here, we are to pass over and ascend the 
mountain itself, taking successive standpoints on the way 
up, looking across and upwards and down, exactly as Bal- 



234 SWITZERLAND THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE 

mat and the other mountain-climbers have done before us. 
We shall make a close acquaintance with many of the 
features of the mountain that we see now at a distance, 
and we shall remind ourselves again and again of what we 
are able to see from here and the way in which particular 
features of Mont Blanc are related to this whole. 

The glacier that we see at the left here is the Bossons 
again. We shall pass over some of those very ice ridges 
and watch the guides cutting steps in the solid ice. Then 
you see that other glacier farther to the right between the 
two ridges of rock? That is the Taconnaz Glacier. Fol- 
lowing up the line of this dark mountain ridge which 
separates the Taconnaz and Bossons glaciers, do you see 
still higher those small dark points projecting out of the 
snow and ice, apparently rather near the base of still 
higher cliffs? Those are the Grands Mulets rocks; they 
are themselves cliffs of very respectable size, as we shall 
see when we get nearer to them; and there are impressive 
views we shall get from the shelter hut which is built on 
the larger of the two rocks. The map shows them plainly. 
Look at the map again (indeed we should keep studying 
it at intervals in close connection with what we see from 
every standpoint on this Mont Blanc expedition). You 
see the map sets down that long, steep rocky ridge be- 
tween the two glaciers as the Montagne de la Cote. 

The precipice standing above and to the left of the 
Mulets is the Mont Maudit. That stands 14,669 feet 
high. Then comes the summit of Mont Blanc, the white 
dome at the right, just above two dark, rocky cliffs. The 



FIKST ATTEMPTS OF BALMAT 



235 



Aiguille du Gouter is that sharply pyramidal peak at our 
extreme right, and the rounding elevation above the 
Glacier de Taconnaz is the Dome du Gouter. We should 
get a perfectly distinct idea in our minds of the situation 
of these points, for it will add a great deal to the clearness 
of our understanding of what we shall see later. The 
route taken up the mountain is somewhat circuitous, and 
we shall see these different landmarks from new points of 
view. 

One of Balmat' s first attempts to climb the mountain 
took him, you remember, only as far as those black rocks 
at the head of the Taconnaz Glacier. It was there he 
stayed alone all night without any shelter, nearly blind 
from exposure to the weather; but a few weeks later he 
tried again, and actually succeeded in reaching the summit. 
Nothing serves to discourage a man with the inborn 
instinct for mountaineering. The successful ascent was 
made by starting from Chamonix late in the afternoon. 
Balmat and another man, Dr. Paccard, camped overnight 
at the farther end of this dark ridge before us at the left, 
the Montagne de la Cote. Early in the morning they 
started on again and bore off to the right across the 
Taconnaz Glacier. Ascents are often made now by bear- 
ing off much farther toward the right than Balmat went, 
going out, in fact, pretty well toward the Aiguille du 
Goiiter. Balmat camped a second night on a little snow 
plateau away up above the Mulets, and almost to the 
Eochers Eouges (E. Eouges on the map). Those are the 
two dark rock masses that you see away up next to the 



236 SWITZERLAND THEOUGH THE STEEEOSCOPE 



summit of Mont Blanc. They are not, however, so very- 
near the summit in real fact. There are fully two hours' 
climbing beyond that point before the highest altitude is 
reached. 

Although Mont Blanc itself is the centre of interest in 
any view round about Chamonix, still there are other 
peaks which have nobility and grandeur of their own. If 
we go over just a bit further to the east here on the Bre- 
vent, and look almost directly eastward, to our left, we 
have a fine view of one of the most picturesque neighbor 
peaks in this whole valley. Find the lines marked 81 on 
the map and you see that we shall be looking directly 
across the little valley of the Arve where Ohamonix lies, 
across the glacier known as the Mer de GTlaee, and on to a 
row of peaks standing up out of the Argentiere Glacier. 

81. Climbing the Heights above Valley of Chamonix, — 
Aiguille Verte in the distance 

See how tiny the few scattered houses look, away down 
there in the valley; they are in the outskirts of Cha- 
monix, but the main village is not in sight from here. 
It is the Montanvert which stands directly opposite us at 
the other side of the valley. (See Map 11.) That is a 
favorite excursion point for tourists because it gives a fine 
view of the Mer de Glace over beyond. It is a part of 
the celebrated glacier which we see lying between the 
Montanvert and the Aiguille Verte, the lofty peak that 
towers above all else. We shall go up on the Montanvert 



MEE DE GLACE FKOM THE BKEVENT 237 

presently for ourselves and look down upon the famous ice 
stream. It looks from here at first glance as if that sharp 
peak over yonder were practically all one mass, but it is 
not so. The steep, sharp triangle of rock which has com- 
paratively little snow on it is partially distinct from the 
other. It is the Aiguille du Dru, and you can see by the 
map that there is an arm of the glacier separating it from 
the other cliffs. The Argentiere Glacier comes down be- 
yond the ridge of the Aiguille Verte; and that is the peak 
of the Argentiere which stands up steeply in the distance 
at the extreme left. 

We shall see the Mer de G-lace from two or three dif- 
ferent standpoints by and by. Among the others we shall 
get one view from a point along the side of those steep 
cliffs beyond the glacier, just above the head of this man 
who is climbing up the nearer rocks. 

We can readily imagine how the spring floods must 
swell the little river down there in the valley below. Not 
many years ago the waters were so high that they carried 
away every bridge but one in the whole length of the 
valley. 

Such a height as this, where we stand now, is really 
more satisfactory in point of beautiful views than are the 
greater heights like Mont Blanc's summit. Now we can 
appreciate the beauty as well as the marvel of this Alpine 
world; but when one is fifteen thousand feet up in the air, 
and merely looks down on neighbors like the Brevent and 
the Montanvert, they are naturally foreshortened into ir- 
regular humps. It is like looking down from a church 



238 SWITZERLAND THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE 



steeple on the heads of men in the street — the experience 
is immensely worth while in its own way, but things near 
by do not show their real beauty. 

Doesn't this seem as if we had wings? 

Now instead of spending more time looking off at these 
distant peaks from the Brevent, let us go down to 
Chamonix and begin the ascent of Mont Blanc. We will 
follow the ordinarily approved route from the village, 
going up across the hills at the southeast of the river 
until we strike the Bossons Glacier. As soon as we reach 
the glacier, all the climbing has to be done for some little 
distance on solid ice, and for quite a portion of the way 
steps have to be cut for a foothold. The heat of the sun, 
the deposit of new snow and many other things serve to 
obliterate steps after they are once made, so the labor of 
the guides in cutting serves only a temporary purpose. 
Find ISTo. 82 on the map. It is near the foot of the glacier 
east of the Montague de la Cote, and we can look up the 
glacier at that point and watch the men at work ahead of 
us on one of the sharp ridges of ice which make up this 
enormous stream. 



82. Ascent of Mont Blanc,— Cutting Steps in the 
Crystal Ice of the JBossotis Glacier 

We are only at the beginning, and this is comparatively 
an easy matter, yet the possibilities of disaster are even 
now thick on either hand. Holes and cracks like those 
that we see here may, you know, have any frightful depth. 



A TEAGEDY OF THE BOSSONS GLACIEE 239 



If one sees them and can avoid them, all well and good; 
but sometimes the mouth of a crevasse is covered by a 
light snow insufficient to hold a man's weight. 

An accident with a peculiarly dramatic sequel occurred 
on this glacier eighty years ago. Five men who were at- 
tempting the ascent were swept away by an avalanche and 
buried so deeply that it was impossible to recover their 
bodies. Later, Professor Forbes came here and made in- 
vestigations as to the rate of movement of the ice mass. 
He calculated that, according to its rate of motion at that 
time, it would carry the bodies of the five men down to a 
certain point in the valley below in about forty years. 
Forty years later certain relatives, and some scientific men 
who were eager to test the accuracy of Professor Forbes' 
reckoning, went to a spot away below us where the glacier 
melts, and there they actually did discover the bodies of 
the men, one of them still recognizable, after forty years' 
burial under the ice. 

You see how our guides are protected as well as may be 
against the danger of any individual fall. They use their 
rope in the same way as that in which we saw men using 
it over on a glacier near the Jungfrau (Stereograph 32). 
The rule is to keep the rope neither very slack nor very 
loose. There is besides another use for the rope in case 
of emergency. If one member of a party is swept off over 
a cliff or down into a crevasse, there must be some means 
of lowering another man to aid him. For this reason an 
extra length is always carried by experienced guides. The 
men have their boot-soles specially prepared with nails to 



240 SWITZERLAND THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE 

prevent them from slipping, and their alpenstocks are in- 
dispensable. In this particular case no special point is 
being made of a climbing costume, but sometimes moun- 
tain-climbers protect their heads from both freezing wind 
and blinding sunshine by black linen masks. The glare is 
something frightful when the sun is bright, and has 
actually caused blindness where the necessary precautions 
were neglected. 

This is slow work; it sometimes takes a minute to cut a 
single step. But, though that is a tiresome task, the man 
who is cutting the steps has really the most comfortable 
part of the task, for it is likely to be cold work when one 
merely stands and waits. It was while crossing a glacier 
over east of here, near the Argentiere, that the English 
mountain-climber, Edward Whymper, stamping to keep 
his feet warm while his guides chopped steps in the ice, 
broke through the ceiling of a great ice cavern and nar- 
rowly escaped with his life. The one who stands and 
waits can, however, give his mind to watching for the ap- 
proach of avalanches, and that is a necessary precaution 
too, for in an ascent like this there is never any real secur- 
ity against the sudden descent of rocks, ice or snow from 
above. Guides come to have almost infallible judgment 
in regard to the reliability or treachery of the snow, and 
they can usually predict, with the keen accuracy of an 
American Indian or a Sherlock Holmes, the probable 
route of the avalanche which is next coming. Still, there 
are surprises always in the air. 



TUNNEL IN THE BOSSONS GLACIER 



241 



You remember how this glacier looked as we saw it 
from the Brevent (Stereograph 80)? 

There is one spot where a tunnel has been bored into 
the mass for a distance of eighty-five yards. It is a some- 
what ghostly experience to walk in under the ice, as the 
tunnel invites us to do, but it is practically quite safe, and 
it gives one a new sensation to think of being down in the 
depths of this solid river. 

83. Tunnel in the Glacier des Bossons, Mont Blanc 

If we could look more closely at the ice we should see a 
good deal of very curious veining and coloring. The 
geologists say it is caused by the squeezing together and 
compacting of glaciers of different origin, and by the com- 
pacting of ice with snow, though the snow itself has prac- 
tically been since turned into ice. Then the opening of 
a crack or crevasse and its filling and freezing again cause 
variations in the color and beautiful veined streaks when 
one sees it in section. 

There is a point up a little farther on the mountain-side 
where we can make a few minutes' stay to look off over 
the further extent of the Bossons toward the Aiguille and 
Dome du Gouter. Think how those looked when we saw 
them from the Brevent (Stereograph 80), and remember 
that we are now but a very small part of the way up the 
mountain slope. 

Consult the map and find Pierre Pointue on the ridge at 
the east side of the glacier and still higher up than the 
ice-tunnel, at the beginning of the red lines marked 84. 



242 SWITZERLAND THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE 

We will wait there a few minutes to look off ahead up the 
way that remains to be travelled. 

84. Ascent of Mont Blanc, — halting ivith Guides at 
Pierre Pointue, — looking up Bossons Glacier 

It takes about two hours to climb from Chamonix up to 
the point where we are now. The Brevent is just about 
over our right shoulder. There is a house here at Pierre 
Pointue where one can find rest and refreshment, and its 
lights can be seen twinkling at night by those who look up 
from the Chamonix hotels. The Chamonix lights can, of 
course, be seen up here in their turn. 

The guide who stands at the right of this little group is 
a good fellow, one of the thoroughly reliable men in this 
region, Joseph Simond by name. The one who is directly 
facing us is another first-rate man — Jules Simond. As a 
matter of fact the Simond name is very common among 
men of this profession round about Chamonix. Whole 
families, brothers, uncles and cousins, go into the busi- 
ness, and names are duplicated in a rather bewildering 
way. 

A few years ago Frances Eidley Havergal, the English- 
woman whose hymns are quite widely known, travelled 
here in Switzerland and went up Mont Blanc as far as the 
Grands Mulets. She wrote a letter home just after her 
return to the hotel, and in speaking about the ascent from 
Pierre Pointue, where we are now, she said: " If you want 
a good idea of it, study any of those snow stereoscopes 
with people crossing crevasses and threading among blocks 



THE VIEW FROM PIERRE POINTUE 



243 



and pinnacles of ice and looking down into the gulfs. 
They give an excellent idea of it. I could have fancied I 
had got into a stereoscope box in a dream." 

Now we will follow on over the very route that made 
this impression on Miss HavergaFs mind. That ice- 
pyramid away at the right is the Aiguille du Gouter, and 
the round cap is the Dome du Gouter. This side of the 
Aiguille du Gouter we see again the upper part of the 
Montagne de la Cote, with its lines of rock and snow, and 
protruding above the snow, in the distance, directly in line 
with the head of Joseph Simond, are the Grands Mulets, 
and farther to the left, in the distance, directly in line 
with the head of Jules Simond, we see the rounded sum- 
mit of Mont Blanc, the place we are bound for. We will 
proceed with these guides on over the Bossons Glacier, 
which we see straight ahead of us (note the irregularity of 
its surface), and up to the hut at the Grands Mulets. 

Let us go back to our standpoint on the Brevent 
(Stereograph 80), where the rocks of the Grands Mulets 
show like little boulders standing up out of the snow. 
What we purpose to do now is to cross the glacier as we 
see it on the extreme left in Stereograph 80, moving to- 
ward the right. The point where we shall stand next is 
numbered 85. It is on the map a little south of Pierre 
Pointue, and the radiating lines show that we shall be 
looking about southwest. We shall see the Aiguille du 
Gouter again at the extreme right and the Dome du 
Gouter towards the left. 



244 SWITZERLAND THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE 



85. Ascent of Mont Blanc,— crossing Bossons Glacier 
Crevasses, — Grands Mulets Bocks, Dome and 
Aiguille du Gouter in distance 

It is only a mile and a half from here up to the Grands 
Mulets that we see upon our left, but it is slow travelling 
over the deep crevasses of the glacier, and in bad weather 
sometimes the passage absolutely cannot be made even 
by the most experienced guides. What the depth of snow 
and ice may be here nobody has tried to calculate accu- 
rately, but it is certainly many hundred feet. Those 
rocks that we see just ahead are practically the sharp 
peaks of outlying hills on the side of the mountain. Their 
summits come up just above the snow and ice in the same 
way that the summits of submarine mountains come up 
above the surface of the water and show as islands. 

This is evidently another place where it is wise to look 
before you leap. One of the most able of the British 
Alpine Club men said in a book on his Alpine tramps: * 
" I must say that I object to crawling on hands and knees 
across three or four feet of snow with a yawning chasm of 
unknown depth on each side. . . . There are few more 
unpleasant sensations, I should say, than when one's legs 
are dangling in space with unknown depths beneath and 
with one's elbows resting on supports which may at any 
moment prove as treacherous as the part which has 
already given way/' 



* Herbert Marsh; Two Seasons in Switzerland. 



SUMMER TEMPERATURE ON MONT BLANC 245 

It is sometimes surprisingly warm when one is climbing 
here at midday under a summer sun; coats are often 
superfluous, and if it were not for the absurdity of the 
situation a sun-umbrella would be gratefully accepted. 
The guides keep a constant lookout, as they move along, 
for signs of avalanches either of rocks or of snow, Some- 
times, in a steeper climb than this, orders come sharply 
from the man in front calling for a sudden turn to the 
right or to the left, as the case may be. It is no time to 
question why. The order means that a rock is coming, or 
a snow-slide, and the safe thing is to obey the guide's 
orders as promptly as one's legs will allow. 

Now look again at the map and find a point a little 
higher up the mountain, farther southwest than our last 
standpoint; it is numbered 86; you see the apex of the 
red lines are near the Grands Mulets; we shall be looking 
westward, away from the summit. 

86. Ascent of Mont Blanc,— Ice Cliffs on the 
JBossons Glacier 

It is warm here now. Two of the guides have taken 
off their coats and are tramping along as if they were 
going over sun-baked grass or hot, fragrant pine needles 
instead of over a pavement of ice five or six hundred feet 
thick. Those masks that they wear to protect their eyes 
from the glare of the snow are certainly not ornamental, 
but they save a great amount of real danger to the eye- 
sight. The glare is actually so blinding that those who 



246 SWITZERLAND THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE 



neglect taking masks or colored glasses (the guides say 
masks are the better) are sometimes laid up for days with 
inflamed eyes, and permanent disability has been the con- 
sequence of too long exposure. 

As we are looking toward the southwest the mountains 
in the distance must be in French Savoy, beyond the Val- 
ley Montjoie. Chamonix lies sharply off to our right. 

It is getting towards night, and we are to sleep at the 
hut on the Grands Mulets. We are almost there, and the 
refuge will be a welcome spot. Besides the fatigue of 
climbing and of crossing the crevasses on the way up, this 
deep surface snow makes walking wearisome. All the 
pleasure one gets in these Alpine ascents is thoroughly 
earned by hard work. 

When at last we reach the Grands Mulets we must look 
about in both directions, ahead towards the summit and 
back down towards Chamonix in the low valley. First 
we will climb ^to the top of the steep little cliff of rock 
and look off toward the southwest before dark. On the 
map this next standpoint is given by the apex of the lines 
marked 87. Again we see by the one short line that our 
vision will be obstructed on our left. On the right we 
shall be able to see the Dome du Gouter. 

87* Ascent of Mont JBlanc 9 — looking from Grands 
Mulets Hut to Dome du Gouter, — End of First Day's 
Climb {Sunset) 

Now we are standing on the very summit of the tallest 
of those rocks which we saw from the Brevent away up 



KEFUGE HUT AT GKANDS MULETS 



247 



at the head of the Bossons Glacier (Stereograph 80). The 
steep Aiguille, which stands just ahead to the left, is put 
down on our map as you see. Over behind it must be the 
spot which the map calls the Petit Plateau. That huge, 
rounding mass, snow-covered except for one little patch 
of dark rock, is the Dome du Gouter, and the Grand 
Plateau, as they call it, is over at the left of the Dome, 
beyond the huge snow-bank. We shall go up farther to 
that Grand Plateau before long. 

The hut here on the Grands Mulets has been built for 
the benefit of travellers ascending the mountain. It be- 
longs to the commune of Chamonix, and the income from 
it is a public fund. It takes fully three hours to reach 
here from Pierre Pointue, and the charge of $2.50 for a 
night's lodging does not seem excessive. The wonder is 
how enough fuel, furniture and food can be brought up 
here to supply the wants of the tourists who take their 
turns in staying overnight. Not everybody does stay 
overnight; the ascent can be planned in a different way; 
but nearly everybody likes to come up here for over sun- 
set and to start out fresh in the morning for the climb to 
the summit. Since 1850 there have been about nine hun- 
dred ascents of the mountain. They keep a record down in 
Chamonix at the Guides' Bureau, and try to have the fig- 
ures include all the different excursions. The number 
varies, of course, from year to year, but there are likely 
to be from thirty to fifty during any ordinary season. 

In the morning 1 we shall leave the cliff on which we 
stand, and going down to that expanse of snow just ahead 



248 SWITZERLAND THEOUGH THE STEREOSCOPE 



where the tracks show that a party have recently been 
over the route, we shall turn and look back past these 
rocks on which we stand and the refuge cabin down to- 
ward Chamonix in the valley below. 

Find the number 88 in a circle on the map, and then 
trace the two long red lines which branch from it, one to 
the upper and one to the right-hand map margin. We 
ought to get now a great sweep of the Chamonix Valley 
and the mountains beyond to the north. 

88. Ascent of Mont Blanc,— looking back {north) 
to the Grands Millets Hut (10,007 feet) and 
Chamonioc Valley 

You see how exactly that cliff of the Grands Mulets 
resembles the summit of some of the sharp-pointed moun- 
tains in this region? It is of precisely the same charac- 
ter as the Aiguilles that we saw when we were looking 
east across the Chamonix valley and the Mer de Glace 
(Stereograph 81). It is easy to see now that this is prob- 
ably an island in the enormous ice-river. How cozily that 
little cabin is settled there in the cleft of the precipice. 
The building had to be bolted to the rocks with the great- 
est security, for you can easily perceive how wind and 
storm must tear across this slope. We might fancy, at 
first thought, that it would be wiser to build the hut in 
• some lower position under the lee of the rocks some- 
where; but, when we stop to think about it, remembering 
that avalanches are likely to go sliding down on either 
side of the rock at almost any time, we remember that it 



VIEW EKOM GRANDS MULETS 



249 



is much safer on the whole to be high up if only well 
anchored. 

It is too hazy for us to see clearly any details away 
down there in the valley, but you remember the Brevent 
is opposite us a little farther to the left. With care, 
we can make out part of the town of Chamonix 
down by the Arve in the valley. The mountains farther 
away are the northeast extension of the Brevent. We 
are looking in a direction almost the reverse of that of 
Stereograph 80, and we are looking, too, exactly at right 
angles to that of Stereograph 81, for the Aiguille Verte 
and the Mer de Glace are away off at our right as we stand 
now. 

Now we will turn about once more and proceed on the 
further ascent, for we are bound for the summit, and 
nothing short of that will satisfy us. A good many tour- 
ists find that the ascent to these Grands Mulets is all their 
courage can compass, but we are to see the whole route 
and even to look off from the very topmost height toward 
the Oberland and toward Monte Eosa. 

You remember that when we were at the refuge hut 
(Stereograph 87) we calculated the location of the Petit 
and Grand Plateaux. Now we are to move on up between 
these two plateaux. The lines marked 89 on the map 
show that our next standpoint is to be a few rods distant, 
from which we shall look over south-westward toward the 
Dome du Gouter, which we have already seen from so 
many different standpoints. 



250 SWITZERLAND THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE 



89. Ascent of Mont Blanc,— a Mountain of Snow, 
between the Petit {11,926 feet) and Grand 
(13,000 feet) Ylateauw 

Now we see what a snow cornice is, and what horrible 
peril a man may run into when he ventures out on such a 
projecting shelf. If one were approaching from below, 
the shape of the cornice and its danger would be evident; 
but if he were to come on such a projecting mass from 
above, where it appears to be an innocent part of the gen- 
eral slope, it would be easy to advance far beyond the 
safety limit before realizing the facts of the ease. It looks 
from here as if that particular cornice were ready to break 
off in two pieces now, simply from its own weight. 

In 1866 an Englishman, a guide and two porters were 
going up this very route between the Mulets and the 
Grand Plateau when they were all swept off by an 
avalanche. Thirty years later they found the English- 
man's body away down at the lower part of the Bossons 
Glacier, and his watch was actually recovered near the 
same region only three years ago (1899). 

Do you recognize our guide who made so picturesque a 
silhouette away up on that cliff of the Brevent? His hat 
is unmistakable. Everybody is seen in silhouette against 
these expanses of snow. It takes only a little distance to 
blot out the details of a man's features, when seen against 
these dazzling ice-banks. 

Fortunately this party has fine clear weather for its 
ascent. Sometimes a mist or a snow-storm will come up 
suddenly when the guides have wot anticipated any sizch 



WAITING TILL THE CLOUDS KOLL BY 



251 



turn of affairs, and in that ease a party may have to wait 
for hours in practically the same spot. It seems a dismal 
waste of time, but discretion is the better part of valor in 
such a case. Imagine climbing that snow slope over yon- 
der in a cloud of thick fog, and walking suddenly off the 
end down into one of those deep crevasses! ISTo, it is 
much better to sit still or move about with as short a 
range of travel as Bonivard had down in his cell at Chillon. 
A man who can tell stories well is a treasure under such 
circumstances. 

But mountain-climbers get hungry; the mountain air 
almost invariably gives a good appetite and the guides 
have plenty of advice to offer about the form in which to 
take supplies for luncheon. Of course these things have 
to be planned very carefully, because not an ounce of ex- 
tra weight must be imposed upon the porters. Even the 
plainest and simplest of fare is relished after one has been 
climbing for three hours, and the coarse black bread of 
Switzerland is delicious here, whatever our opinions of it 
might be when we were over the French frontier on our 
way to Paris. Our spot for a luncheon is to be on the 
Grand Plateau, a level just before the final long pull to the 
summit of the mountain. Look once more at the map; it 
is worth while to keep the different steps of the route 
clearly in mind as they are put down there. The spot 
where we are to rest for a few minutes is marked 90. We 
shall be looking toward the summit. 



252 SWITZEBLAND THKOUGH THE STEEEOSCOPE 



90. Ascent of Mont Blanc,— Party resting on Grand 
Plateau (13,000 feet), Mont Blanc in distance 

The height of the mountain lies straight ahead of us at 
the top of what looks now like a rather low rounding dome. 
The cliffs at the left are the Rochers Rouges. You find 
them put down on the map and you remember we saw 
them above the Mulets when we looked from the Brevent 
in that outlook to which we have referred back so many- 
times (Stereograph 80). It is interesting to go back to 
that standpoint now once more, and find the dark rock 
away up towards the summit. From the Brevent it looks 
to be just a little below the final height of the dome. Our 
standpoint now is, as you see, just below that rock. 

You remember, of course, what an effect mountain alti- 
tude has upon the temperature of boiling water; it is not 
nearly as hot when it boils here as it would be found if 
one were getting dinner down in Chamonix. If we were 
actually to do any cooking with boiling water the practical 
implications would be rather serious, for it would of course 
take a great deal longer to complete the process. 

It seems bright and sunshiny here now. There are 
enough men to give us a pleasant sense of companionship, 
and the tracks in the snow are very suggestive of neigh- 
boring humanity. The idea of rest and something to eat 
is very pleasant in a wholesome, commonplace way; but 
this Grand Plateau has seen its own tragedies. In 1870 a 
whole party of eleven men perished here from exposure to 
a storm. They had spent the night at the Grands Mulets, 



DEATH IN A SNOW-STORM 



253 



and people down in Chamonix watched them through the 
forenoon at intervals between drifts of snow-cloud. For a 
few minutes they could be seen plainly climbing up the 
slopes which we have just traversed; then clouds sweeping 
over the face of the mountain shut out the sight of them 
completely. The storm grew fierce and the top of the 
mountain was covered with cloud for a whole week. The 
force of the wind was such that it was not safe for another 
party to attempt the ascent at once, but as soon as the 
weather moderated enough to make the expedition feasi- 
ble a party came up to learn the fate of the first eleven. 
The bodies of five of the men were found frozen to death, 
and the others were accounted for by a letter found on the 
person of one of the party, an American. He wrote: 
" The 7th of September, evening. We have been for two 
days on Mont Blanc in a terrific hurricane; we have lost 
our way, and are now at an altitude of 15,000 feet. I have 
no longer any hope. We have nothing to eat; my feet are 
already frozen and I have strength enough only to write 
these words. Perhaps they will be found and given to you. 
Farewell." They say that in the midst of life we are in 
death; but nothing makes the truth so real as being in a 
spot like this, where one party may experience only the 
most exhilarating pleasure and the next party may all find 
death in the heart of a snow-storm. 

A little farther still up the mountain, on that ridge to 
the right, farther than we can see, is another refuge hut 
with buildings partly for tourists' shelter and partly for 
the making of meteorological observations. Look at the 



254 SWITZERLAND THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE 

map again and you find south of the Grand Plateau the 
Kefuge Vallot at the apex of the red lines marked 91. 
The outlook we are to have from that point is north-north- 
east and you see the lines indicate that we shall be able to 
look off to a long distance. 

91. Ascent of Mont Blanc, — Mefuge Hut des Bosses or 
Vallot (14,311 feet), looking north to Bernese Alps, 
Fifty Miles away 

As long ago as 1859, when Tyndall, the English scientist, 
was doing his most energetic mountain-climbing, he came 
up here with ten guides and camped over night on the 
summit (just off at our right now) in a tent ten feet 
square. The men were all sick and forlorn, and the scien- 
tific experiments which he meant to make were not en- 
tirely successful. Nearly thirty years later, 1887, a 
Frenchman, named Vallot, came up and camped for three 
nights. There were nineteen in his party, the number 
made up by porters bringing supplies. He sent back fif- 
teen of them and four stayed — two men to make scientific 
observations and two guides to accompany them down. 
It was through Vallot's endeavors and influence that 
this hut here was afterwards built on the Bosse or 
" hump " of rock, in order to make scientific excursions 
more easily practicable, and to provide a shelter in which 
individuals might stay over night. The Chamonix people 
were a little afraid that it would hurt the hut at the 
Grands Mulets so far as business prosperity was concerned, 



VIEW FKOM THE REFUGE YALLOT 255 



and they made difficult terms for the erection of the build- 
ing, but the plan was finally put through. The materials 
were brought up by porters who carried about thirty-five 
pounds apiece. Just think of the route over which they 
had to come with this building material on their backs! 
Imagine climbing those ice-heaps that we saw in Stereo- 
graph 82, crossing the crevasses in Stereograph 85, and 
climbing the long steep slopes above the Grands Mulets 
(Stereograph 89) encumbered by such burdens! It is fully 
four miles up from the lower end of the Bossons Glacier. 

We are looking east of north now. The Grand Plateau 
lies down behind this cliff at our left. The first mountain 
on our right is Mont Maudit (14,669 feet), one of the very 
highest mountains in the Alps, and yet its summit is only 
a few hundred feet higher than where we stand. A much 
lower ridge beyond, seen between those two men, belongs 
to the Aiguille du Midi (12,608 feet), while the loftier 
ridge, farther away, but distinctly seen, is the Aiguille 
Verte, the beautiful mountain we saw from the Brevent 
(Stereograph 81). Fifty miles away we catch glimpses of 
the Bernese Alps that we already know. Our field of 
vision from this point is marked out on the general map of 
Switzerland. 

But though the task of building this little Vallot hut 
was great, as we have seen, the building of the ob- 
servatory on the very top of Mont Blanc was something 
still greater. The history of that building is unique. It 
stands even higher than where we are now and a little to 
the right. We will turn about and push on to reach the 



256 SWITZERLAND THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE 

very summit. See the red lines marked 92 branching 
toward the northeast from Mont Blanc on the map. 

92. Summit of Mont JBlanc, highest point in Europe, 
I £ looking northeast past Observatory to the Bernese 
Mountains, Alps 

The very highest point of land in all Europe is the 
point where we stand now. The first careful measure- 
ment of the height was made by an Englishman in 1775. 
He made it 15,660 feet by triangulation, reckoning Lake 
Geneva as 1,228 feet above the sea, and Mont Blanc 14,432 
feet higher. In 1787 De Saussure made another measure- 
ment by means of a mercurial barometer and called it 15,- 
667 feet. The guide-books now call it 15,781 feet. It 
had for years been the dream of the meteorologists of 
Europe to have an experiment station on this height, but 
it was only in 1893 that the enterprise was actually put 
under way. Vallot, who built the hut lower down (Stereo- 
graph 91)established an observatory there and was anxious 
to have an observatory erected on the summit, but the 
latter project was put in practical operation by Janssen 
of Paris, President of the French Academy of Sciences, 
and Director of the Observatory at Meudon. He succeeded 
in interesting Rothschild and others, including Eiffel, the 
famous French engineer, the builder of the Eiffel Tower. 
Of course they started with the idea of founding the 
observatory, in the proper traditional fashion, on a rock, 
and in August and September of 1891 they tunnelled 
down ninety-six feet through the snow-bed, but even then 



BUILDING THE OBSERVATORY 



257 



could reach no rocks. They dug seventy-five feet farther, 
probing for rocks, but no rocks still. Then they decided 
to build the foundations in the snow. Evidently the 
deposit of snow here on the summit is over one hundred 
and seventy feet — how much over, it is impossible to 
estimate closely. In 1892, after a great many experi- 
ments here and at Meudon with regard to the sinking of 
weights in the snow, this observatory building was con- 
structed at Meudon, taken to pieces, transported to 
Chamonix and brought up here in parts, to be put together 
again on the spot. The walls and windows are double. 
The shutters are air-tight and the foundations of the 
building are so planned that the building itself will stay 
vertical even if the snow settles, as is likely to be the case. 
The building was finished in 1894. Most of the materials 
were brought up on the backs of porters, though some 
were hauled up by windlasses from one and another avail- 
able point over intervening slopes. The greatest wonder of 
all about the building is perhaps the fact that Dr. Janssen 
himself was seventy years old at the time, and so lame that 
he was unable to walk readily even on the smooth pave- 
ment of a city street. He had to be hauled up like a part 
of his own materials, partly by the stout arms of porters 
and occasionally by a windlass! The observatory is a 
monument to his personal energy and what Yankees call 
" grit," as well as to the scientific enthusiasm of the 
French people and the generosity of great capitalists. 

Dr. Janssen made a good many interesting experiments 
up here. The apparatus includes a meteorograph to regis- 



258 SWITZERLAND THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE 

ter atmospheric pressure, temperature and the direction 
and force of the wind. This piece of apparatus is arranged 
by machinery so that it will work eight months without 
supervision. A fine telescope was added in 1895. The 
lowest winter temperature, as recorded by the meteoro- 
graph, has been 45 degrees P. below zero. Here on the 
summit the temperature of the snow, a few inches below 
the surface, appears to be about 20 degrees F. below the 
freezing-point. It was through his observations here that 
J anssen satisfied himself that the oxygen lines in the solar 
spectrum are due to oxygen in our own atmosphere rather 
than to oxygen in the atmosphere of the sun itself. 

The mountains that we see far away there to the left 
beyond the observatory are parts of the range of the 
Bernese Alps. The nearer mountain to the left of the 
observatory is the Aiguille Verte. Comparing our pres- 
ent view of that mountain with the appearance of it from 
the hut Vallot (Stereograph 91), it is easy to see that we 
are at a much higher elevation now. 

The snow-covered mountains to the right, just above 
the slope where the guides have thrown down their ropes, 
are parts of the Monte Eosa range which we saw during 
our journeyings about the head of the Visp valley (Stereo- 
graph 61-63). The distance which one can see from a 
summit like this is enormous, but the very fact that we 
are so much higher than anything else makes the view, in a 
way, less impressive to the eye; for we lose the magnificent 
outline of neighboring peaks when we simply look down 
upon them as now. Perhaps it is only in our imagination 



THE DESCENT FROM THE SUMMIT 



259 



that we can fully realize the fact that this is the highest 
bit of land in the whole of Europe, higher than Monte 
Kosa, higher than the Matterhorn, — actually nearer the 
sky and the sun than any other peak between the North 
Sea and the Mediterranean, the Black Sea and the broad 
Atlantic. 

But nobody stays long up here on the summit of the 
mountain. The wind is likely to change at any mo- 
ment bringing on a blinding storm of snow. We have 
been exceptionally fortunate in finding the summit clear 
of clouds and storm. But we too must prepare to go 
down. The guides will pick up those ropes and harness 
the party together in customary fashion. They will take 
up their alpenstocks and make ready for the long descent. 
The number of hours required for the descent is of course 
a good deal less than the number needed for climbing up- 
ward. They usually reckon about twelve hours' work to 
get up to the summit from Chamonix, whereas six hours 
will answer under ordinary circumstances going down. It 
will take our party something over an hour to descend as 
far as the Vallot refuge (Stereograph 91), two hours more 
to get down to the Grands Mulets, another two hours to 
reach Pierre Pointue, and a final hour for the last scramble 
down the steep slopes, partly wooded, from Pierre Pointue 
to the village. Before we go we must signal to the people 
in Chamonix, for they are always on the watch when par- 
ties have made the ascent, and they will answer our signal 
by the firing of a cannon. If we were to fire a gun our- 
selves up here, — that is not encouraged on account of the 



260 SWITZERLAND THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE 

danger of starting avalanches, — we should be surprised to 
find what a faint, thin noise a pistol report produces in the 
rarefied air of this elevation. A signal to Chamonix, 
then, far, far down on our left, and a moment to wait for 
the answer; then we will turn back towards home. 

Again, we may well be thankful for such magnificent 
weather. This is no place in which to go wandering about 
with snow driving in our faces, for the route we have to 
take lies shudderingly near gulfs that turn one dizzy at 
the very thought of them. Look on the map northeast of 
the summit to the lines near the number 93. That is a 
point just below one of the huge ice-chasms that have to 
be cautiously avoided on our way down. 

93. Descent of Mont Blanc,— enormous Crevasses 
near the Summit 

Our guides will take a circuitous route around this 
great opening in the side of the mountain, but sometimes 
it is necessary to descend places as rough and threatening 
as this. The lightest man generally goes down first; 
sometimes one of the guides will have himself let over the 
edge of a snow mass like that up yonder, the others hold- 
ing him by ropes, that he may see what is below and 
decide whether it is advisable for the others to follow. If 
not, they draw him up again and proceed to find a better 
place in which to descend or cross. Sometimes, in coming 
down a very steep precipice of this sort, it is necessary to 
move backwards with one's face toward the cliff, looking 



ACROSS TO THE MONTANVERT 



261 



down through between the legs in order to see where to 
reach for the next foothold! 

If we descend by the usual route, we shall go down past 
the Grands Mulets, across the Bossons Glacier once more, 
and then go down to Chamonix by way of Pierre Pointue. 
The very last of the slope, as we approach the village, is 
through woods and over ferny pastures, warm and sweet- 
scented. Flowers grow there only a few rods from the 
everlasting ice, and the sound of brooks running down 
into the Arve welcomes our return from the skies. 



Another excursion which we can take from Chamo- 
nix leads us farther over toward the east, to the Mon- 
tanvert. You remember we saw the dark slopes of this 
mountain when we were on the heights at the north side 
of the valley of Chamonix (Stereograph 81). It would 
be well to return to that standpoint for a few minutes 
and see again how the Mer de Glace comes down between 
the Montanvert and the Aiguille Verte. The location of 
the mountains and the glacier is shown very plainly on 
our Map No. 11. Almost in the centre of the long map 
we find the Mer de Glace starting from many tributary 
glaciers and winding down toward the valley of the 
Chamonix on the north. We find the Montanvert be- 
tween the Mer de Glace and Chamonix, southeast of 
Chamonix, and our next standpoint is marked 94 on the 
eastern slope, overlooking the glacier. The red lines 
show we are to look nearly south. 



262 SWITZERLAND THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE 

94. A Hemnant of the Glacial Period, — huge Mer de 
Glace and Grandes J or asses 

It is a simple and easy matter to come over here from 
Chamonix if one keeps to the beaten path. There is no 
danger and no need for any extraordinary physical ex- 
ertion. This is the most famous of all the glaciers in 
Switzerland, and we can readily understand why it is 
popularly known as the " Sea of Ice," for those billowy 
masses down there certainly do look like the waves of a 
rushing river suddenly hardened by some magic touch. 
See what enormous masses of debris there are on either 
side of the glacier, — the lateral moraines, as geologists 
call them. Some of those rocks that have been brought 
down by the slow-moving ice are from twenty to thirty 
feet square, although the glacier handles them as care- 
lessly as if they were little pebbles. It is again a surprise 
to find these great streams of ice side by side with sum- 
mer foliage, flowers, and warm, sunny banks. We can see 
here in midsummer a fragrant hay crop not more than ten 
or twelve feet from the edge of an ice-stream that has 
been in practically the same place for centuries. One 
man may be wiping the perspiration from his brow in the 
intervals of mowing a hillside pasture, while another man 
not more than a hundred yards away may be freezing to 
death down in the depths of a crevasse. The extremes 
of winter and summer go hand in hand. 

The geologists tell us that the central part of the Mer 
de Glace moves nearly two feet a day — that is faster than 



THE MER DE GLACE 



263 



the sides, because of the lesser friction to hold it back. 
The movements continue day and night. To give the 
movement a very homely personal analogy, — rocks in the 
surface of a glacier are found to have a forward, onward 
movement, something as spots on a man's finger-nail grow 
farther and farther out while yet the general shape of the 
nail seems to remain unchanged. 

Look once again at the map and identify the ice- 
serpent which joins the Mer de Glace, coming in 
from the right. You see it is the Tacul or Giant 
Glacier; and the Glacier de Leschaux must be that 
great white mass that we see in the distance at the ex- 
treme left. Can you make out the identity of that tall, 
jagged ridge of mountains straight ahead of us? Look 
on the map again, and you see they are put down unmis- 
takably near the lower side of the map, a ridge of sharp- 
toothed peaks standing in line nearly east and west, the 
range known as the Grandes Jorasses, that stand guard 
on the Italian frontier. Again we need to look carefully, 
for not all those mountain summits we see directly before 
us are an equal distance away. In fact the somewhat 
darker mountain rising like a pyramid directly from the 
glacier stands much nearer us than the line of the Grandes 
Jorasses beyond. That nearer mountain is the Aiguille 
du Tacul, found on the map not over two-thirds as far 
away as the farther peaks. We should notice that Ai- 
guille du Tacul particularly, because we are soon to mount 
to its summit. There are some magnificent views over 
there in the neighborhood of the Grandes Jorasses, and 



264 SWITZERLAND THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE 

we must get just a few glimpses of that wonderful scenery 
before we turn our faces away from Switzerland. You 
see that very dark, rocky elevation at our right, with the 
glacier coming out from behind it? We will go over be- 
yond and around that mountain, cross the Tacul Glacier 
and mount to the Glacier des Periades, of which we get 
just a little glimpse above where the lines of two moun- 
tains cross. From that point we can look southwest, 
back towards Mont Blanc in the distance. Find now the 
number 95 in a circle near the west side of the Aiguille 
du Tacul. The red lines show that we are to look back 
from that point toward the southwest. 

95. Ascent of Aiguille du Tacul,— looking to Tour 
Monde, Mont Blanc and Mont Maudit from 
the Glacier des Teriades 

Strange how black a human figure looks against this 
snow! Features are blotted out just as they are when we 
see a person against a brightly lighted window. It is a 
fine chance to study characteristic masses and proportions 
of figures in action. We do not need to see any details 
of that guide at the right to recognize him as an old ac- 
quaintance, for we have studied his energetic silhouette 
many times since the first glimpse we had, away up 
on that impossible precipice of the Brevent (Stereo- 
graph 79). 

The glacier on which we are standing is, we know, the 
Glacier des Periades. Opposite us is the Glacier du Geant, 
or Tacul. We know Mont Blanc now, of course. His white 



MONT MAUDIT AND THE TOUE EONDE 265 

head is unmistakable, looming up directly before us over 
everything else. 

Those slender, steeple-like peaks on Mont Maudit, to 
the right, are a kind of rock formation very common in 
the Mont Blanc range. No wonder the French-speaking 
Chamonix folk call them " needles." In the distance to 
the extreme left is another of these peaks, La Tour Konde, 
but the most striking of all these needle-like summits is 
the " Giant," or Aiguille du Geant, which we caught a 
glimpse of at our right when on the Montanvert (Stereo- 
graph 94). It stands to our left here, beyond the range 
of our vision. 

We can get the best view of the " Giant " by turning 
about, crossing the Glacier des Periades behind us, and 
then looking back southwest from the Aiguille du Taeul. 
The map shows the direction, in the guide-lines from 
point 96. Let us go back just a moment to our stand- 
point on the Montanvert (Stereograph 94) and you can 
see where it is we are to go. You see that broken, jagged 
pile of cliffs, just above where the glacier of the Geant 
and the Glacier des Leschaux come together to form the 
Mer de Glace, the rugged side of the Aiguille du Tacul? 
We shall take a stand part way up one of those ice-filled 
hollows between the mountain's ribs and look off toward 
the west to the tall, slender spire that just peers over the 
shoulder of the Aiguille des Charmoz, the nearer slope on 
our extreme right. 



266 SWITZERLAND THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE 



96* Ascent of Aiguille du Tacul— looking southwest to 
Aiguille du Geant 

An angle of just about forty-five degrees, is it not, that 
we are climbing now? It is well that the leader should 
be a sure-footed guide. If the man lowest and last in 
line should slip, that would not be so bad; the others could 
brace themselves, dig their alpenstocks and axes into the 
ice and arrest his fall. But if the leader should slip and 
come sliding back, — well, that does not happen when the 
leader is a good Chamonix guide. 

This is one of the places where climbers have to be on 
the constant lookout for avalanches. These great couloirs 
or gulfs between the upcropping rock ridges are favorite 
places for snow-slides and rock-slides. Look! Loose 
snow has fallen on the glacier's surface over there on the 
open slope beyond the men! Is it a mere accident of the 
wind? Is it the sprinkled remnant of some distant ava- 
lanche? Can it possibly be the avant-coureur of an 
avalanche down this very gully? ~No. The guides think 
there is no immediate danger, considering the present con- 
dition of the snow in general, so we will venture to stand 
here a few minutes to study that strange freak in moun- 
tains, the Giant's Needle (Aiguille du Geant), up there 
on our left. It is an incredible form for a mountain, — 
as impossible as the Matterhorn without the Matterhorn's 
awful dignity. Even as late as 1871, when almost all the 
notable peaks of Switzerland had been scaled, as good an 
Alpinist as Mr. Leslie Stephen declared it was an im- 



VIEWS FROM AIGUILLE DU TACUL 



267 



pregnable fortress; nobody could climb it. Eleven years 
later (1882) a party of Italians did climb it as far as the 
lower , of those two sharp teeth at the top, and that same 
summer an Englishman reached the tip of the taller tooth. 
It is time that the word impossible should be marked in 
dictionaries "obsolete"! The peak, La Tour Konde, 
which we saw from our last standpoint (Stereograph 93) 
far to our left, is now seen in the distance on our right. 

Higher and higher still our men call us to climb up 
the Aiguille du Tacul. Soon we will pause again and look 
off toward the north. Consulting the map you see how 
the lines marking out this next field of vision cross the 
lines from the Brevent (Stereograph 81) almost at right 
angles? We are to see some of the same peaks which 
were visible from standpoint 81, only from another side. 
Look back to No. 81 for just a moment. There, you 
know, we saw the Aiguille du Dru standing directly in 
front of the Aiguille Verte, like a child in front of its 
mother. Now we are to see the same two peaks from the 
south side. This time the Aiguille Verte will appear not 
so much like one sharp pyramid as like the steep ridge of 
a gable-roof, and the Aiguille du Dru will show its sepa- 
ration from the other summit. 

97. Ascent of Aiguille du Tacul— amid dizzy Heights;, 
looking north to Aiguille du Dru and Aiguille Verte 

How far do you suppose it is across from here to that 
broken ridge of the Aiguille Verte? Fully four miles in 
a straight line, and as far to the Aiguille du Dru, there 



268 SWITZERLAND THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE 

at the left. We can see now how it was that the smaller 
peak stood exactly in front of the larger one when we saw 
them both from the Brevent. OSTow it is the Aiguille du 
Moine that stands between us and the Aiguille Verte, and 
the glacier that we see (over beyond our guide), is the 
Talefre. Both this glacier and another that we cannot 
see, farther to the right, are moving slowly down into the 
huge Mer de Glace off at our left. The famous " Gar- 
den" is over there in the Talefre, — an island encircled by 
a wall of debris from the neighboring mountains and sur- 
rounded by a sea of ice. For a few weeks every summer 
Alpine flowers actually bloom there in places where soil 
has gathered in the clefts of the rocks. A French botan- 
ist some forty years ago (1868) enumerated one hundred 
and nine species of plant life found on this queer oasis in 
the ice-desert, — the strangest of surprises in a place like 
this. One expects to dodge descending boulders and show- 
ers of loose stones when he is on these mountain-sides. 
One has his mind made up to watch for avalanches of 
snow, and for the cracking and falling of enormous icicles; 
but gathering flowers? Switzerland is full of curious con- 
tradictions, for llossoms naturally suggest a landscape 
smiling and serene, not a bit like this. 

Now we can follow the lead of these glaciers, as we 
would follow the lead of mountain streams, down towards 
Chamonix. The map shows how they slide down into 
the Mer de Glace. We will descend the rocks here and 
let the guides find a practicable route along the glacier 
back to the Montanvert, from which we looked a while 



THE MAUVAIS PAS AND MER DE GLACE 269 



ago (Stereograph 94). The dotted lines on the map show 
pretty nearly the track to be followed. Study the map 
and see how the most desirable path leads along the edge 
of the glacier at the foot of the Montanvert and then 
crosses the ice to the point marked 98 in red. From 98 
we can turn about and look back once again toward the 
very spot where we are now. 

98. The " Mauvais JPas 99 and Mer de Glace, Aiguille 
du Geant in the distance 

The clouds are always to be taken into account. There 
they come, filling in the distance and hiding from view 
the Aiguille du Tacul which we just climbed. It is over 
behind our good guide Simond as he stands there last in 
line on the path along the side of this cliff. The iron 
rods fastened along the rocks here do not mean that the 
place is especially dangerous as Alpine climbing goes, but 
only that it is a favorite resort for travellers who do not 
care for more adventurous scrambling, and so it has been 
made as easy as possible for ordinary tourists. True, it 
would be an ugly enough fall from here down to those 
jagged blocks of ice in the Mer de Glace, but an experi- 
enced guide considers this path as easy and safe as walking 
downstairs. It is only when he feels his way down over 
a wall of ice-encased rocks, with a distance of two or three 
thousand vertical feet between him and a glacier-bed, that 
one of these Chamonix men would begin to feel the pleas- 
ant excitement of a risk! It all depends on the accumu- 
lated experience by which we measure any new experience. 



270 SWITZERLAND THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE 

They tell us here the story of a man who was picking 
his way along this narrow shelf, years ago, when he met 
a herd of chamois. It was impossible to turn out. The 
chamois were many, the man was only one. He lay down 
flat on the shelf and let the whole herd walk over him! 

Perhaps the skies will clear for us if we move on along 
this rocky way to a point called the Chapeau, a little 
farther north, down the valley. There is a particularly 
fine view from that point when the clouds are not lying 
too low. See; the dotted lines on the map show how our 
route can be continued to the point marked 99. Prom 
99 we can take one more long look back over the glacier 
between its high mountain walls. 

99. Mer de Glace from the Chapeau ; Aiguille du 
Geant, Charmoz and Montanvert in the distance 

We know the Montanvert at once on our right, because 
it is wooded and green. It was from there that we had 
such a magnificent view of the glacier with the Grandes 
Jorasses standing guard beyond (Stereograph 94). You 
remember how near were those perfectly smooth, steep 
slopes above the glacier, when we looked off from the 
Montanvert? Then the Aiguille du Geant was seen just 
peering over the shoulder of the Aiguille des Charmoz; 
now the Geant stands out like a tall chimney above the 
upper end of the glaciers, and the Charmoz shows itself 
big and clear and sharp just opposite us here. It is only 
three miles across to the Charmoz, while the Geant is over 
seven miles away. 



THE WORK OF MOUNTAIN STREAMS 



271 



Years ago chamois hunters used to camp on this little 
plateau where we are now; but the chamois are few to-day 
and tourists take the place of the hunters. Strangely 
grand and poetic surroundings are these in which to make 
one's living keeping a restaurant; but the mountain air 
does make everybody hungry, and the offices of a good 
cook are to be respected! 

It was about here that Forbes and Tyndall made many 
of their celebrated observations in regard to the move- 
ments of glaciers. Ruskin made some interesting calcu- 
lations, too, about the rate at which mountain streams 
hereabouts wear away their own smaller beds. He ex- 
perimented with a little stream only four inches deep, 
flowing from the Aiguille des Charmoz down towards Cha- 
monix (Chamonix, you remember, is three miles away at 
our right). He filled bottles with the flowing water from 
the little midsummer stream, weighed the sandy sediment 
and made very careful estimates of the volume and velo- 
city of the stream itself. These were the figures he 
obtained. 

The stream carried along about three-quarters of a 
pound of powdered granite every minute. Calling it 
thirty pounds per hour, and a hundred-weight every four 
hours, it would amount to two tons a week, — fully eighty 
tons a year. This seems to keep well within the limits of 
a modest estimate. And the stream was only one, a very 
small one, among many. Its work in the valley, so Rus- 
kin estimated, ought to be considered as multiplied by 
one thousand to include the work of neighboring 



272 SWITZEELAND THEOUGH THE STEREOSCOPE 



streams; — that makes eighty thousand tons of pulverized 
rock worn away and carried down from the mountain- 
sides to the valley just by brooks alone, not counting any 
of the hundreds of great avalanches that fall every year, 
and not counting the grinding of the cliffs by this moving 
sea of ice at our feet. 

Is it any wonder that the Ehone is gradually filling in 
the eastern end of Lake Geneva as we saw it (Stereograph 
74), making the lake into a level, fertile plain? 

See what strange, fantastic •shapes the ice takes here 
near the end of its bed, — a confused mass of towers and 
pinnacles and jagged aiguilles like smaller editions of the 
mountains. Do those parallel openings in the ice this 
side of the Montanvert mean deep chasms? The cre- 
vasses down there between those grotesque ice-towers are 
hundreds of feet deep; sometimes the sound of running 
water comes up from the unknown space below where 
lonely rivers run underneath the ice. 

Let us take one more long look up the valley while the 
noon sunshine plays with the peaks and the glaciers. The 
grass at our feet grows in as cheerful and commonplace a 
way as if it were beside our own door at home, only a 
stone's throw from the dramatic terrors of the ice. Here 
in this mountain inn there is comfort in plenty for exact- 
ing humankind, while up on those needle-peaks of the 
Charmoz and the Geant not even an eagle finds a place 
for a nest. It is a spot where one's imagination is stag- 
gered by the vastness of things and bewildered by the 
thought of far-stretching ages of time. We cannot quite 



THE MER DE GLACE 



273 



take into consciousness the length of years that wind and 
weather and gravity have been working to get ready for 
the grass-blades and for us. We cannot quite imagine 
what changes other centuries may make in this very val- 
ley, wearing off the sharp peaks, planing off the precipi- 
tous cliffs, till they become rounded like our Appalachian 
ranges at home. How will it look after the elements 
have been at work another ten thousand years? And 
what kind of men and women will be here to see? The 
problem is too big for us. All we can fairly get hold of 
now is the beauty of the world to-day. And isn't it 
glorious? 

Shall we go down among those ice-castles of the glacier 
for our farewell look at Alpine miracles? Then let us 
choose the spot. At the extremest right as we look now, 
well out in the heart of the huge stream, do you see a 
pyramidal tower of ice with some tall, crooked, conical 
cliffs near it at the left? With the guide's help (and we 
need it) we can work our way down among those piled-up 
monuments of ice and look across the rest of the glacier 
toward where Chamonix lies in its own deep valley. (Look 
back to Stereograph 81 for just a moment, and recall how 
the Mer de Glace seemed to cut off the eastern end of the 
valley of Chamonix when we saw it from the Brevent. 
Now we are to look from the piled-up ice-crags of the 
" fall " at the end of the glacier itself, back towards the 
same Chamonix valley.) 



274 SWITZEKLAND THKOUGH THE STEREOSCOPE 



100. Great Ice-fall at the end of the Mer de Glace 

This is the way in which the breaking " waves " of the 
Mer de Glace dash high at the end of their course through 
the rock-bound valley! Can anybody figure out the exact 
force that pulled and pushed the enormous masses of solid 
ice, piling them up on end like these huge obelisks? Fig- 
ures are impressive in their way, but here is the real fact. 
Every cloud that sails over the Aiguille Verte, dropping 
a handful of snowflakes, pushes just so much harder on 
this end of the glacier, and keeps the splintered ice piled 
high in spite of all that summer sunshine and mountain- 
streams can do to melt it and carry its waters down to 
the Ehone. Perhaps some particles of this very ice under 
our feet once made part of a wave, lapping the ships of 
iEneas as he sailed the blue Mediterranean. It might 
easily be so. And perhaps the very same particles will 
some day reach the Mediterranean again by way of the 
Arve and the Rhone. It is a long, slow journey home! 

The old Hebrew poets never saw this heart of Switzer- 
land, but they fathomed the secret of its deepest signifi- 
cance. We have to-day no new phrases that say it half as 
well as the old phrases: 

" Bless the Lord, my soul, . . . who layeth the beams 
of his chambers in the waters; who maketh the clouds his 
chariot; who walketh upon the wings of the wind. . . . 
The waters go down by the valley unto the place which 
thou hast founded for them. . . . 

" . . . Praise the Lord from the earth, fire and hail; 
snow and vapor; stormy wind fulfilling his word." 



Oberlin, Ohio. 

Underwood & Underwood. 

Dear Sirs : — I have examined with great interest the 
stereoscopic photographs of the Holy Land, which you 
publish. They are, altogether, the finest which I have 
ever seen, and with Dr. Hurlburt's interesting book and 
the patent maps they enable one to make a journey almost 
literally through Palestine. I have rarely been so pleased 
as by these stereoscopic pictures. They will make a trip 
to the sacred place accessible to those who do not cross 
the ocean. 

Faithfully yours, 
(Signed) John Henry Barrows, D.D., LL.D. 

{Late President Oberlin College*) 



New York, April 18, 1902. 
Underwood & Underwood. 

Dear Sirs: — In answer to your favor of the 17th inst., 
it gives me great pleasure to testify to the value of your 
stereoscopic views in connection with the teaching of 
certain subjects of the Grammar School course. I allowed 
the pupils of my graduating class to use the stereoscope 
and views, and, judging by the interest and pleasure evi- 
denced by those scholars in examining natural and geo- 
graphical views, the systematic use of such an instrument 
would be of great aid to the teacher. It would awaken a 
deeper interest and result in a more comprehensive know- 
ledge of some of the great facts and truths of the geograph- 
ical and natural sciences . Those of my teachers who had 
an opportunity to use the 'scope and views were enthusias- 
tic in their praise. 

Very truly, 

(Signed) Joseph H. Wade, 

Principal. 



Harvard College Library, 

Cambridge, Mass. 

I have examined many of the stereoscopic views of 
Underwood & Underwood's collection, especially those of 
foreign places with which I am familiar, and they impress 
me as being excellent photographs and selected with good 
judgment. 

The stereoscope gives such a vivid impression of reality 
and of relative positions and distances that I should think 
their views would be admirably adapted for popular use in 
public libraries. 

Wm. C. Farre, 

Librarian Harvard University. 



Boston, Mass. 

I have examined the collection of stereoscopic views of 
Palestine published by Underwood & Underwood with 
great interest and pleasure. The artist has selected his 
subjects with great wisdom, and shown remarkable artistic 
ability in his treatment of them. I know of nothing of 
the kind so valuable. I should say that the collection 
would be a great help to the minister in his study of the 
Bible, and to the Sunday-school teacher in his work 
among children. This testimonial is voluntary and dis- 
interested. 

Yours sincerely, 

H. G. Mitchell, D.D., 

Boston University Theological School. 



MAP NO. 1. 




•P 3 



LBJe'05 



OUR. COMPLETE 

SWITZERLAND "TOUR 



consists of One Hundred Original Stereo= 
scopic Photographs of the more important 
places in Switzerland, arranged in the same 
order a tourist might visit them. M. L. 
Emery acts as a personal guide in a book 
of 270 pages. In this book are also given 
Ten Maps of our new patented system, 
specially devised for the purpose of showing 
the route and definitely locating the stereo= 
graphs. Educators say that by the proper 
use of stereographs, with these maps, people 
may get genuine experiences of travel. 



THIS SECTION 



is taken in full and without alteration from 
the larger book* 



